An early<i>Australopithecus afarensis</i>postcranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia

Haile‐Selassie, Yohannes; Latimer, Bruce; Alene, Mulugeta; Deino, Alan L.; Gibert, Luís; Melillo, Stephanie M.; Saylor, Beverly Z.; Scott, G. R.; Lovejoy, C. Owen

doi:10.1073/pnas.1004527107

Cited by 225 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…This increased stride length in these short-legged bipeds (much shorter relative to body size than in modern humans ( [63][64][65], but see [66]; figure 3) while controlling vertical oscillation of the body's centre of mass. Longer strides, in turn, decrease stride frequency and the cost of locomotion.…”

Section: Pelvic Evolution In Early (Non-homo) Homininsmentioning

confidence: 89%

The evolution of the human pelvis: changing adaptations to bipedalism, obstetrics and thermoregulation

Gruss

Schmitt

2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

145

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The fossil record of the human pelvis reveals the selective priorities acting on hominin anatomy at different points in our evolutionary history, during which mechanical requirements for locomotion, childbirth and thermoregulation often conflicted. In our earliest upright ancestors, fundamental alterations of the pelvis compared with non-human primates facilitated bipedal walking. Further changes early in hominin evolution produced a platypelloid birth canal in a pelvis that was wide overall, with flaring ilia. This pelvic form was maintained over 3-4 Myr with only moderate changes in response to greater habitat diversity, changes in locomotor behaviour and increases in brain size. It was not until Homo sapiens evolved in Africa and the Middle East 200 000 years ago that the narrow anatomically modern pelvis with a more circular birth canal emerged. This major change appears to reflect selective pressures for further increases in neonatal brain size and for a narrow body shape associated with heat dissipation in warm environments. The advent of the modern birth canal, the shape and alignment of which require fetal rotation during birth, allowed the earliest members of our species to deal obstetrically with increases in encephalization while maintaining a narrow body to meet thermoregulatory demands and enhance locomotor performance.

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Section: Pelvic Evolution In Early (Non-homo) Homininsmentioning

confidence: 89%

The evolution of the human pelvis: changing adaptations to bipedalism, obstetrics and thermoregulation

Gruss

Schmitt

2015

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

145

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“…288-1 [42,43], whereas the 'large individual' is composite data from A.L. 444-2 and KSD-VP-1/1 [43,44]. The group mean is the average of these two datasets.…”

Section: (I) Australopithecus Afarensismentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain size of Homo floresiensis and its evolutionary implications

2013

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The extremely small endocranial volume (ECV) of LB1, the type specimen of Homo floresiensis, poses a challenge in our understanding of human brain evolution. Some researchers hypothesize dramatic dwarfing of relative brain size from Homo erectus presumably without significant decrease in intellectual function, whereas others expect a lesser degree of brain diminution from a more primitive, small-brained form of hominin currently undocumented in eastern Asia. However, inconsistency in the published ECVs for LB1 (380-430 cc), unclear human intraspecific brain-body size scaling and other uncertainties have hampered elaborative modelling of its brain size reduction. In this study, we accurately determine the ECV of LB1 using high-resolution micro-CT scan. The ECV of LB1 thus measured, 426 cc, is larger than the commonly cited figure in previous studies (400 cc). Coupled with brain-body size correlation in Homo sapiens calculated based on a sample from 20 worldwide modern human populations, we construct new models of the brain size reduction in the evolution of H. floresiensis. The results show a more significant contribution of scaling effect than previously claimed.

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“…Finally, the Woranso-Mille site has yielded multiple hominin species, including A. afarensis, Australopithecus deyiremeda, some intermediate forms between A. anamensis and A. afarensis, and possibly another species to which the enigmatic foot from Burtele belongs (17)(18)(19)(20). At this point, it is not clear to which of these species the reported carbon values pertain or whether the values reflect the range for multiple species.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable isotopes serving as a checkpoint

Alemseged

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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An earlyAustralopithecus afarensispostcranium from Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia

Cited by 225 publications

References 54 publications

The evolution of the human pelvis: changing adaptations to bipedalism, obstetrics and thermoregulation

The evolution of the human pelvis: changing adaptations to bipedalism, obstetrics and thermoregulation

Brain size of Homo floresiensis and its evolutionary implications

Stable isotopes serving as a checkpoint

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